1. Field
This application is generally directed to systems, apparatus, and methods for protecting computer networks from potentially harmful infiltrations by using internet protocol (IP) reputation information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Organizations desire to protect their computer infrastructure from threats that can come from anywhere, anytime. Hackers and cybercriminals have an immense number of exploits and attack vectors available to them, and they have begun using orchestrated attacks on organizations' computer infrastructure using numerous techniques to hide their identities and activities, such as encrypted communications, DNS cache poisoning, URO redirection, hyperlink obfuscation, and anonymous proxies and/or networks. Attackers now use a wealth of methods to infect innocent host computers or computer networks, and to control these infections through organized botnets (e.g., networks of automated or semi-automated programs controlled by outside entities) in order to carry out actions (e.g., probing sites, scraping Web content, posting spam messages, or attacking websites) that are unauthorized, unwanted, and/or potentially or intentionally harmful to the infected computers or computer networks or to other computers or computer networks on the internet. For example, these actions can be used to launch automated phishing, spamming, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on critical business applications and services.